VICTIMS SHARE A LIVING HELL

‘Dirty, grubby, disgusting … Harris had a hold over me that made me a quivering wreck’

2023-05-25 - Andrew Koubaridis

Rolf Harris’s victims had never met but all had the same horrifying story.

They were attacked by a predator – a celebrity they looked up to and admired, who thought he could do whatever he pleased.

In 2014, Harris was convicted of 12 sex offences on four females. One charge relating to an allegation Harris indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl in 1969 when she attended an event at a leisure centre in Portsmouth, in the UK, was later quashed.

One of his victims met the disgraced Australian entertainer as a young child when she was friends with his daughter, Bindi.

She was 13 when the assaults began and the abuse scarred her for decades, later revealing how the attacks reduced her to a “quivering wreck” and robbed her of the chance to ever have a proper relationship.

The woman told his UK trial she was holidaying with the Harris family in Hawaii in 1978 when she had just finished showering.

She was wearing a towel wrapped around her body when Harris gave her “one of his big hugs and tickles” and put his fingers on her crotch.

She said Harris sexually assaulted her in her bedroom when she was 15, before laughing and joking downstairs with her parents, with whom he was friends.

Harris conceded he had a relationship with the woman, but claimed it was consensual and started after she turned 18.

The woman said she was left feeling “dirty, grubby and disgusting”, and became an alcoholic.

“I have never had a meaningful relationship while sober. I have also never been able to hold down a job. Rolf Harris had a hold over me that made me a quivering wreck. He made me feel like a sexual object,” her statement read to court said.

A teenage waitress alleged Harris rubbed her back and then squeezed her bottom during filming for a TV show in Cambridge in 1978.

At sentencing, Harris was told: “You were clowning around and took advantage of the fact that she was somewhat awe-struck. Again, others were present. You groped her bottom, squeezing her left buttock a number of times.”

“I was absolutely petrified. I wanted to scream but I didn’t. I knew what he’d done was wrong but I was embarrassed.

Tonya Lee

Victim

Australian woman Tonya Lee waived her right to anonymity before the trial. She told of how the attack came during her theatre group’s tour of the UK.

Ms Lee said Harris called her over to his table, complimented her voice and asked her to sit on his lap. He then moved his hand over her legs and put it up her skirt.

She went to the pub’s toilets but Harris followed her and assaulted her again, she said.

“I was absolutely petrified. I

“I was wearing a leather belt. He would grab the belt and pull me towards him so he could crotch grind, which never quite happened but he certainly tried. Each time I went up to him he would touch me.

Suzi Dent

Victim

wanted to scream but I didn’t. I knew what he’d done was wrong but I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell anybody that he touched me. I thought people might say I’d done something.”

She later developed bulimia and depression, and began drinking heavily.

There were six other alleged indecent assaults by Harris including on two Australian makeup artists, a 16-year-old fan and her mother from Newcastle, an 18-year-old traveller in Malta who feared she was about to be raped and a 12year-old girl from Darwin.

These all occurred outside the jurisdiction of the court but were used by the prosecution to show a “pattern” by Harris.

One of the makeup artists was Suzi Dent, 24 when she crossed paths with Harris.

She told the ABC she was excited to met him because he was “very famous” and she’d watched his shows as a child.

Once he was in the makeup chair, he began to touch her.

“He’d run both hands up my legs, right up to my thighs,” she said.

“I was wearing a leather belt. He would grab the belt and pull me towards him so he could crotch grind, which never quite happened but he certainly tried.

“Each time I went up to him he would touch me.”